Last painful moments
by Spy for the Right
Summary: Hermione Granger spends her last moments remembering what He did. One-shot, sad, ignores Dumbledore's death and Deathly Hallows, Major Character Death


I screamed in the deadly silence of prison. Words rang through my head, words I didn't want to hear, words that managed to hurt me no matter how many times I've already heard them. Voices shouted at me, disapproving looks were shot my way underneath my eyelids. I screamed again - a blood-curling scream that made even the creatures of the darkness shiver.

_'I was given a choice, Hermione. I chose right. No matter how light it is, darkness will always come.' _His taunting voice, his cruel face, the blood on his clothes - blood, not from himself, but from other's, all of it was visible to me even when I forced my tired eyelids open. Sleep wasn't something I experienced nightly or even weekly. But it didn't matter, for what use did I have for energy in the cold and darkness of prison?

My pleas sound pathetic even in my own ears, but it was my last hope. **_He lured me_ _here,_** I remember thinking. I looked around at the body's, faced unrecognisable from what He did to them. The blast from his spell had bounced into the sky as a warning signal. I was the only one who'd known which shield to use. No one else outran the fire, no one else could flee from the immense pain and suffering that would occure in those last, unmeasurable moments.

Another scream echoed through the halls. Time and time again had I seen how people lost their minds to sadness and misery, how people merely drifted further from reality untill nothing but a shell of their personality remained. Wishing time and time again that next would be me, that I wouldn't know who I am, that the faces in my nightmares held no names, no feelings, no memories. That I wouldn't imagine their past or their future. That their fate held no more meaning to me than a common horror movie.

Yet my mind became more clear as my body withered away from exhaustion and hunger. Memories became clearer as my hands and palms became a pattern of fingernails. My voice, used for so many screams, did not die down untill I had no more. I recognized each face that was seen and each body that was burning. I saw their last hopes, wishes and thoughts die down in their eyes, replaced by nothing. I saw as everyone that held my heart lost their lives to a spell I invented. I felt emotions I had never felt - hopelesness, anger, pity, sadness, several unrecognisable ones, drowned by the immense pain, not physical like everyone else, but a pain deep in my chest, a pain that did not lesson from time or from revenge, a pain I would never learn to ignore.

Another dementor floated by my cell and my ear-piercing scream was heard in the entire building. Neville, who's heart was there despite his own protest, was killed on impact with the sound barrier, perhaps the best fate of them all. Remus, jumping in front of his newly-wed wife to protect her from the amount of magic needed for such a creation, misforming himself in a last attempt to protect those dear to him. Tonks, pregnant with Remus' little cub, eyes wide from the newest relevation, doubled over in pain and a last hope to protect what is most dear. Her clother burned and raw, the soft crying of a 8-and-a-half month little boy before even that died out. All the Weasleys, eyes filled with the horror of the betrayal they suffered, all shields up to no avail. Destroyed by sound and times, their faces mashed together untill all that was recognisable were the grim expressions of horror, pain and never-ending sadness. Luna, hurled in the water when Neville broke the barrier, breathing her last breath with the stench of pain and blood in the air.

McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, Sprout, Dumbledore, all appaled at who would deliver them to Death himself, all trying to find a non-existant flaw.

Harry ...

My own ears pained of the scream that sounded through my cell when I thought of how he'd frozen up, greeting Death with no dignity as tears flowed down his face, please and promises escaping from his lips as pain gripped him time and time again, sadness overwelming him in his last moments alive. The Boy Who Lived defeated in a horror no director would dare come up with.

I felt my magic flow out of me as each memory made its appearance and I found myself almost peaceful to find that I was going to Them. I lay down and, with no happy memory to think of, I thought of those last moments as I had done for the past three years.

I closed my eyes and let the small island we'd been summoned fill my senses, willingly for the first time since my arrival. The confusion on everyone's faces as they took in the large yellow sphere we seemed to be caught in, and seeing Ronald Weasley in the middle of the Island loyally at Lord Voldemort's side, his Lord protected in a large bubble. A sneer on both their faces when the loud screams and pleas filled the chilly air. Finally, comprehension dawned on me and I silenced everyone. The sound-and-time barrier closing in on us with every sound. My pleading face as he spoke his last words on that cold christmas.

_'You don't know what I'm capable of.'_

Neville's screams that followed those cruel words and the barrier broken, death to those who didn't know the shield unavoidable. No one but me had survived that night. I was taken to the ministry for hearing and found guilty. Rufus Scrimgeour's harsh words.

_'Are you happy now?' _

I vowed to myself that I would answer when capable. With difficulty, I found my last strength and forced the word out of my mouth. My voice was hoarse from all the screaming but it hung in the air as I took my last breath and found peace.

I was dieing. I would no longer suffer from memories. I would see those I loved again, never having to leave. I wouldn't scream at those rare nights that Sleep claimed unconsciousness. Feelings wouldn't hurt me. My senses wouldn't be filled with horrors that Death Eaters had to endure.

I would be free.

Yes. I was happy.


End file.
